All Four Teams Make a Super Case

Each Team Has a Weapon That's Both Unique and Difficult to Stop

By

Kevin Clark and Jonathan Clegg

Updated Jan. 17, 2013 8:42 p.m. ET

Something amazing is happening in the NFL playoffs—everyone is really good. The four teams that remain left in the hunt for the Super Bowl—the Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots—don't have many holes and certainly aren't flukes (sorry, Giants fans, your team wasn't exactly the 1985 Bears last year). The Ravens, Patriots and 49ers are all returning to their second-straight conference championship game and the Falcons have made the playoffs for four of the last five seasons. It is, in short, one of the best final fours in recent memory. Each team has a special set of skills that will get them to the big game, and so, naturally, every team is going to make the Super Bowl. We outlined why:

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William Moore
Getty Images

THE FALCONS' DEFENSIVE BACKS

At first glance, Atlanta's defense doesn't look especially tricky. The Falcons regularly line up at the start of each play in a standard "two-deep" alignment, which calls for each safety to patrol one half of the field, and is the defensive equivalent of a vanilla milkshake.

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But once the ball is snapped, the Falcons rarely stick to such a simple scheme. Instead, they use a bewildering array of defensive shifts, disguised zones and coverage rotations to befuddle opposing quarterbacks and put safeties Thomas DeCoud and William Moore in prime position to force turnovers.

While Moore and DeCoud usually line up deep in the secondary, they often have license to undercut pass routes, charge forward in run support and even rush the opposing quarterback. According to the website Pro Football Focus, Moore has one sack, three hits and five hurries on 29 blitzes this season, making him the second-most productive pass rusher among all safeties.

Atlanta's knack for confusing opposing offenses with subtle coverage shifts may explain why their defense surrenders a significant number of yards but often forces a mistake before they give up points.

Opponents have racked up an average of 372.9 yards per game against the Falcons this season, but have scored just 19.2 points per game, meaning Atlanta has allowed one point every 19.4 yards surrendered, the best figure in the league.

Sunday's win over Seattle was a case in point. Trailing 13-0 in the second quarter, the Seahawks drove 59 yards to the Falcons' 11 yard line, but were stopped on fourth down when fullback Michael Robinson was stuffed on a delayed blitz by Moore.

"They do a great job," Robinson said. "They brought in an extra defensive lineman and then the safety off the edge. We just didn't have enough blockers for them."

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Wes Welker
Getty Images

THE PATRIOTS' PASSING ROUTES

Due to the dominance of Tom Brady, the phrase "high-powered" is thrown a lot around when talking about these Patriots. Don't believe it. The real secret is a calculated string of tactical passes that result in first downs and little else.

Consider this: They made 444 first downs this season, the most ever by an NFL team. They managed this with a collection of precise route-runners in wide receiver Wes Welker, tight end Aaron Hernandez and the now-injured Rob Gronkowski. These weapons are helped along by what even the Patriots admit is the most complicated system of route running in football—a nearly endless supply of "option routes," which basically give the receiver the chance to go in any number of direction on a route, depending on the coverage. The key for the Patriots is that with so many fast players running these routes, it's nearly impossible for a defense to keep up with everyone, especially over the middle with Brady's quick, tight throws. "First of all, they have so many weapons. If you're going to play zone, Tom Brady might kill you and if you're going to play man there are so many weapons. So it's a very difficult offense to defend," said Patriots defensive back Aqib Talib.

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Delanie Walker
Sacramento Bee/Zuma Press

THE 49ERS' FULLBACKS

It's no secret that the 49ers have terrorized opponents with quarterback Colin Kaepernick's electrifying speed. But what makes the 49ers offense so effective isn't the fact that Kaepernick has a rocket launcher for an arm and can run like a wildebeest. It's how San Francisco has revolutionized the role of one of the most unheralded positions in the game: The fullback.

On a classic "zone-read" play, the quarterback reads the defensive end before deciding whether to hand the ball to his tailback or to keep it and run himself. But when the 49ers run their version, it isn't just Kaepernick who takes his cue from the defense. San Francisco also deploys a fullback—or tight end Delanie Walker—to deliver an array of different blocks based on the defensive end's movement.

If the defensive end is lurking outside, the fullback will seal him off to create a cutback lane for the tailback. But if the defensive end follows the tailback inside, the fullback will adjust to a so-called "arc block," in which he scoots around the defensive end and targets the outside linebacker at the second level.

The result: When Kaepernick runs with the ball, he often has a three-lane highway leading to the end zone. "Their blocking schemes and adjustments are very different," said New York Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell before a Week 6 meeting with the 49ers. "They're a little bit unique in what they do."

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Joe Flacco
Associated Press

THE RAVENS' DEEP CHUCKING

The Ravens' passing offense is significantly different from the Patriots' offense. For one, they aren't fond of those quick passes. Nor do they try for complicated, pinpoint routes. The Ravens' plan is much simpler: quarterback Joe Flacco chucks it really far and someone somehow catches it. The numbers show that strategy is working to perfection.

According to Pro Football Focus, no quarterback threw a deep pass more often than Flacco—17.3% of his throws were targeted at least 20 yards downfield and in the regular season he tied for the league lead in touchdowns on those throws with 11. But while throwing deep isn't terribly difficult, catching is. The Ravens' receivers, though, are unusually good at catching things. Only 4.3% of Flacco's passes were dropped this season (compare that to Tom Brady, who had 7.4% of his passes dropped). If there's anything to take from wide receiver's Anquan Boldin's outrageous 145-yard performance against Indianapolis in the wild card round, in which he averaged 29 yards per reception on simple routes, it's that the Ravens don't have the technical precision of other teams. They just heave it up there and against a spotty Patriots secondary which allowed the 29th-most yards in the NFL this season, that could work.

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